My wife went into surgery Tuesday Aug 9th at 8am to replace a bicuspid aortic heart valve.
They found the existing heart valve was smaller than expected, so they fitted a 19mm mechanical heart valve and put the heart back together. This resulted in an unacceptable gradient, so they removed the valve, enlarged the valve area, and installed a 21mm valve. She was heavily dependent on the heart machine to keep her blood flow up.
She came out of surgery around 3:30pm, and woke up around 10pm. It was hoped that her heart would beat on its own, but this was not the case. She ended up getting a permanent pacemaker installed Friday at 6:30am.
She stayed in ICU until Friday near noon, also keeping tabs on her right lung which suffered a tear during surgery. This caused an air pocket next to her ribs, and a collapsed lung. While a torn lung and a heart not beating are apparently common, having them both on the same patient are uncommon. My wife was on some pretty hefty medications that made it very difficult for her to process questions and choose an answer. “How are you doing?” “…….. I don’t know.” “Can I get you anything?” “…….. I don’t know.” This is typical of the pain killers issued.
Moved up to the Cardiac Ward, she continued to improve. She was becoming more mobile, more awake, and continued to be healing. Half her staples came out Saturday, the rest on Sunday. The last IV came out Monday, she was able to do stairs, and we were discharged in the early afternoon.
We stayed one night at my wife’s brother’s place, and headed home Tuesday morning, taking it easy. My wife continues to feel better each day, and has starting tapering off her pain killers.
We had a lot of people praying for use, and while this didn’t go quite as well as I had hoped, God still answered our prayers – my lovely wife is with us today.